Murray Rothbard’s Philosophy of Freedom

Murray Rothbard (1926–1995) based his political philosophy on a simple insight: slavery is wrong. Few, if any, would dare to challenge this obvious truth; but its implications are far reaching. It is Rothbard’s singular merit to show that rejecting slavery leads inexorably to laissez-faire capitalism, unrestricted by the slightest government interference. If we reject slavery, [...]

Fiscal Force

“I know ev’rybody’s income and what ev’rybody earns; And I carefully compare it with the income-tax returns.” —W.S. Gilbert, Princess Ida April is the cruelest month, for reasons other than what T.S. Eliot had in mind. This is the month in which you must account for yourself to Caesar. The authorities, having relieved you of [...]

Tolls on the Road to Serfdom

D.W. MacKenzie is an assistant professor of economics and finance at SUNY Plattsburgh. Many people think their taxes are too high and that the tax system is unfair. While those who favor individual liberty might find this encouraging, the specific reasons for discontent are not entirely positive. Many Americans think the current system is unfair [...]

Book Reviews – December 2006

• The Ethics of the Market
  by John Meadowcroft Reviewed by Richard M. Ebeling
  
• Peddling Panaceas: Popular Economists _in the New Deal Era
  by Gary Dean Best Reviewed by Burton Folsom, Jr
  
• Philosophers of Capitalism: _Menger, Mises, Rand, and Beyond
  by Edward W. Younkins Reviewed by Aeon J. Skoble
  
• Winning the Race: Beyond the Crisis in _Black America
  by John McWhorter Reviewed by George C. Leef
  

Is the Income Tax Unconstitutional?

Wishful thinking, always a temptation, is hazardous. Example: An awful lot of people think the income tax as it applies to private-sector wage earners is illegal—even unconstitutional—and they assume that if they can only come up with the right legal arguments, judges will strike down the tax and make America a free society once more. [...]

Democracy Versus Liberty

If a foreign power took over the United States and dictated that American citizens surrender 40 percent of their income, required them to submit to tens of thousands of different commands (many of which were effectively kept secret from them), prohibited many of them from using their land, and denied many the chance to find [...]

The Economic Foundation of Freedom

The late Howard Buffett was a U.S. representative from Nebraska (1943–1949 and 1951–1953). This article, condensed from a lecture at Midland College in Fremont, Nebraska, is reprinted from The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty, December 1956. For more information on Buffett see Joseph R. Stromberg, “Howard Homan Buffett: Old Rightist Extraordinaire” at www.antiwar.com/stromberg/s042401.html. A clear understanding [...]

How Government Disables Private Disability Insurance

Robert Wright is author of the newly published Wealth of Nations Rediscovered (Cambridge) and Hamilton Unbound (Greenwood), coauthor of Mutually Beneficial (NYU Press, 2003), and co-editor of History of Corporate Finance and Corporate Governance in Historical Perspective (both Pickering and Chatto, 2003). Taxed Social Security earnings determine the level of three major types of Social [...]

Myths of the New Deal

A persistent myth in American history is that Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal created jobs during the Great Depression and helped the poor “forgotten man” who was thrown out of work. Almost every American history text echoes this myth in its pages. Irwin Unger, for example, who won a Pulitzer Prize for a book [...]